Expressing Our Nature
By: Barbra Hernández
JoJo, 51, had suppressed her real identity all her life for fear of rejection from her relatives and coworkers. “I never really showed my true feelings. I would never go out,” she confesses over the phone. Putting on her black wig and stepping into those high heels was something JoJo could only do when her then-wife, with whom she was married for 25 years and fathered a daughter, went out of town. And even then, the alarming number of transgender-related hate crimes in the country intensified her fears of coming out. “You get beat up or killed because of your sexual preferences,” adds JoJo.
Transgenders are more susceptible to violence than possibly any other group within the LGBT community. “It becomes difficult to pass as one gender or the other,” says Amit Taneja, assistant director of the LGBT Resource Center at Syracuse University. Being visibly different is only part of the problem. “Transgender issues have come to the forefront very recently,” Taneja adds. The wave of gay and lesbian civil rights movements helped open the door for transgender awareness, but lack of information or, in most cases, misinformation about this segment of the LGBT population, increases their vulnerability. Although generally associated with nontraditional and deviant sexual preferences, transgender behavior reflects a divergence between an individual’s mental identity and his or her biological sex. JoJo felt such disparity put everything in her life at stake: family, friends and even her job. “In my line of work I cannot afford to have known what I do,” says JoJo, who holds a high-profile job. After meeting her new friends and masking on a feminine appearance at one of their houses, she drove over to St. Andrews Church, where members of Expressing Our Nature (EON), a nonprofit organization for transgenders in Central and Upstate New York, gather every other Saturday for support meetings. Nearly a dozen transsexuals, cross dressers, female-to-male and male-to-female individuals religiously attend. “All of a sudden you meet these people that are like you and it’s like, ‘Wow’,” says JoJo, who tried joining similar organizations in other parts of Central New York unsuccessfully. All of a sudden you have this family now. It’s kind of like everybody protects each other.
For nearly two decades, EON has advocated in favor of the local transgender community and offered a safe place for participants to freely express their identities. Originally intended for male cross dressers and their relatives, the organization soon expanded its services to anyone who identifies within the transgender spectrum through an open-door policy. Although no record is kept, one of the founding members estimates around 300 people from all over the state of New York have attended EON meetings. “It is a gathering where you can be comfortable. They will talk about anything,” member Joanne Thomas says. “It’s a community resource. ”
A set of staircases leads to the dimly illuminated basement of the parish house where EON members hold their meetings. Rainbow-colored ornaments fill up the spacious room in contrast to the soft lights. There, participants discuss anything from makeup, electrolysis and laser procedures to political activism and media portrayals of transgender individuals.
On a hot Saturday afternoon in May, Thomas arranges the chairs around the two tables where the rest of the members will join in shortly. She sits and reaches for a stack of papers to fold; her French manicure is perfect and so is each of the three folds she flattens on the promotional sheets for an upcoming Pride Festival. As two other members help her finish up, JoJo, clad in a casual light blue sweater and jeans, walks in with gentle confidence. She greets everyone warmly on her way to one of the chairs. The conversation slowly grows as more members enter. Chit-chat flutters from one table to the other, with an occasional inside joke drawing smiles and winks from participants.
The focus of the group lies in fostering a familial atmosphere for members and their friends to come together and socialize. There are no fees, no requirements, no management; only individuals building the community they otherwise could not find. “A lot of people have been persecuted, they’ve lost their family,” says Faye Brooks, an active member for nearly eight years. “Sometimes the only family they have left is EON.”
Through the years, they developed a support system. Brooks calls it a safe haven for those at different stages in the search for an individual identity. “We are always there through the crisis. That way a real bond has developed within the group,” Brooks says. “It’s come to be a thing a lot of people rely on and use it for strength.” For those who cannot attend the semimonthly meetings, EON created a listserv where about 200 users post their inquiries and receive counseling from others.
Except for a few nights out at local LGBT community oriented bars like Spirits, EON members do not publicly promote the organization too often. Most members, like JoJo, have joined by word of mouth. Their advocacy work is generally done on an as-requested basis. Some of the community services offered include informative talks at institutions and companies like Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield, in Rochester, that wish to better educate their employees on diversity. Most of the organization’s publicity is done through major activities within the LGBT community, such as the Syracuse Pride Festival in June. But that’s as far as it goes. Despite being around for so many years, EON remains under the radar mostly because of safety concerns for its members. Many keep their real identity concealed from their family and co-workers for fear of rejection. “The only time they (members) can get out might be at our meeting,” Brooks says. Others live in fear of violence for their nontraditional gender expressions. Hate crimes against transgenders are among the most common within the LGBT community. An average of one transgender per month was murdered throughout the last decade in the United States, according to Transgender Crossroads, a branch of the Indiana Transgender Rights Advocacy Alliance. Their study put New York in second place on the list of states reporting the most incidences of transgender-related hate crimes, with California taking a narrow lead. Amit Taneja says it is common for organizations like EON to maintain secrecy policies in light of the violence threats to transgenders. “If they are having to keep it low-profile, it is because the environment around them is hostile and not accepting,” he says. To members of EON, that secrecy brings them closer as a group. “It is a trust that we offer,” Brooks says. It strengthens their social bonds and offers protection to those who may be afraid of exposing their true identities. At EON, success is measured in terms of the individual satisfaction of each member. That’s why organizations like it are necessary, says Amit Taneja. “Having groups like EON really creates a space for transgender individuals to come together and celebrate the transgender community,” Taneja says. “Their focus is on creating that shared sense of family. EON continues to play an essential role in the lives of people like JoJo, for whom attending the meetings has become almost a necessity. I think they (at EON) set me free and saved my life at the same time, JoJo says. I am living the life that I want to live.
It’s been seven months since she nervously walked down the staircase into the church’s basement for her first EON meeting. JoJo no longer cares about wearing her wig and makeup out in public. Nor does she mind making the two-hour drive to Syracuse every other Saturday. “I go because I need to go, because it reassures my sanity. It keeps me going from week to week,” says JoJo, who claims to be getting better at applying her makeup on the road. “It’s family. That’s where I need to be.”